Country will also forbid US GPS stations within its borders in protest of sanctions.

On Tuesday, Russia’s deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin announced that the country would not cooperate with the US on the International Space Station (ISS) after 2020 despite the fact that the US was hoping to use the ISS until 2024. Rogozin also said that Russia would no longer sell its NK-33 and RD-180 rocket engines to the US for military purposes. RD-180 rocket engines are used in the United States' Atlas V launch vehicle for a variety of cargoes including US military payloads.

Finally, Rogozin said that the US will have to cease operations of its 11 GPS sites within the country on June 1 unless the two nations can come to an agreement before then. After the June 1 deadline, Moscow says it will permit three months of negotiations, but if there's no agreement, the 11 stations “will be permanently terminated,” the Russian government-funded site RT wrote.

Backing out of ISS

These measures are in response to US sanctions on Russia and its top officials, which were imposed as a response to Russia's actions in the ongoing Ukraine crisis. The US says Russia is backing separatists, and Russia says the Ukrainian government is “coup-imposed” and illegitimate.

Further Reading

The situation with NASA began in early April, when the space agency's Headquarters issued a statement saying that all interaction with Russia must be ceased immediately except for communications pertaining to the operation of the ISS. NASA does not currently have a launch vehicle that can service the ISS, so all crew is taxied to and from the orbiting spaceship via Russian vehicles. NASA does have a human spaceflight launch vehicle in development, but it won't be ready for prime-time until 2017. The US currently pays Russia about $60 million for every astronaut it flies up to the ISS.

On Tuesday, Rogozin noted that Russia will likely pull out of the ISS in six years, effectively halting all US involvement in the project too. “We currently project that we’ll require the ISS until 2020,” he said, according to RT. “We need to understand how much profit we’re making by using the station, calculate all the expenses, and depending on the results decide what to do next.” Rogozin added that “a completely new concept for further space exploration” was in the works. Later, Rogozin tweeted, “On May 19th on the eve of Russia-China Summit we'll discuss prospective projects of our bilateral cooperation in space with our partners in Beijing.”

No rocket engines for sale

After the early April directive to stop communications with Russia, NASA still permitted the United Launch Alliance (ULA), a partnership between Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, to purchase the RD-180 rocket engines that it uses to launch Atlas V rockets carrying military satellites. NK-33 rocket engines were also still available for import from Russia.

In May, SpaceX told a court that it thought ULA was getting preferential treatment from the US government. The company complained that it never had a chance to bid for ULA's contract and noted that the majority of the launch vehicles that were produced, “use RD-180 rocket engines manufactured by NPO Energomash, a corporation owned and controlled by the Russian Government.” The court then issued an injunction against the import of such rocket engines.

Although the injunction was later dissolved, it looks like Elon Musk's company will be getting its way after all, although not via the route it may have wanted. “Russia is ready to continue deliveries of RD-180 engines to the US only under the guarantee that they won't be used in the interests of the Pentagon,” Rogozin tweeted on Tuesday. In a government briefing, Rogozin wrote, “We’ve repeatedly warned our colleagues at the political and professional levels (via the Federal Space Agency) that sanctions are always a boomerang. They always come back around and are simply inappropriate in such sensitive spheres as cooperation in space exploration, production of spacecraft engines, and navigation, not to mention manned space flights.”

While the Russian space agency is in a position to hamstring certain aspects of NASA's operations, Russia's own agency has suffered many high-profile accidents and is reeling from the US' plan to halt exports on high-technology items, The Telegraph reported. “These sanctions are out of place and inappropriate,” Rogozin said, according to the paper. “We have enough of our own problems.”

As for the US' GPS stations in Russia, Rogozin tweeted today, “Roscosmos (RUS Fed Space Agency) stands ready for talks with the US on equal-footed cooperation and on deploying GLONASS stations in its territory.”

Update: This post originally said that SpaceX asked for an injunction against Russian rockets imported by ULA, but in fact the company was less explicit than that.

Russia may well be bankrupt (again) by 2020. So... ok. Besides maybe with Russia abandoning the place the US will finally be forced to give NASA a budget.

IF Europe stops buying their gas, and I hope the hell they do. Russian oligarch money is all tied up in banks in London. What a crazy situation....

Anyway, Elon Musk! The man in the right place at just the right time. Something like Gates and Jobs in early 80s. Or Page and Brin in the 90s. He's got them all beat because SPAAAACE! Damn. Incredible.

NASA's "planned" end of the ISS program was 2016. Now it's 2020. Despite the fact that that date will very likely be moved back, the most you can say about this is "Both NASA and Russia now 'planning' to abandon the space station in 2020"

First of all they are not idiots. They know what they are doing. Sure it isn't in yours and mine best interest, but they don't care. It is in their best interest. Second of all, one side has democratically elected officials with term limits. The other side is run by a borderline, soon not to be borderline, dictator and his buddies, with no freedom of press and poor civil rights track. So no. This sutuation are not two equal rivals bickering. Not even close.

Russia may well be bankrupt (again) by 2020. So... ok. Besides maybe with Russia abandoning the place the US will finally be forced to give NASA a budget.

IF Europe stops buying their gas, and I hope the hell they do. Russian oligarch money is all tied up in banks in London. What a crazy situation....

Anyway, Elon Musk! The man in the right place at just the right time. Something like Gates and Jobs in early 80s. Or Page and Brin in the 90s. He's got them all beat because SPAAAACE! Damn. Incredible.

I'm sure the GPS constellation has cross-link capability... so it's doubtful we actually *need* GPS ground stations in Russia in the first place. At worst, we're probably talking about a software patch to allow GPS satellites to get time corrections from other ground stations, forwarded by other satellites in the constellation, with some error correcting for the longer signal path. And that's assuming that none of that already exists, which it probably does.

Who's bright idea was it to rely on our cold war enemy to supply us with rockets for our weapons systems to monitor our cold war enemies?

I thought the cold war was over. If the US actually tried treating Russia as a friend (like, not trying to install missiles in Russia's backyard), Russia could have become a friend. But some people clearly prefer to have Russia as an enemy.

I thought the cold war was over. If the US actually tried treating Russia as a friend (like, not trying to install missiles in Russia's backyard), Russia could have become a friend. But some people clearly prefer to have Russia as an enemy.

With all this madness, here's hoping they still get that NSC installed at Chernobyl.

That's going to go forward pretty much no matter what, from what I understand. Belarus and Ukraine have a vested interest in making it work, even if Russia takes their ball and goes home. The EU will definitely stay involved in that project, although the real concern is if Russia breaks off its cooperation with the US Department of Energy on security upgrades at its nuclear sites.

I have to admit, the more I learn about the situation over there the more I am not a fan of how things are playing out. It's starting to seem to me that after the Syria debacle, the one where Obama drew a line in the sand that was proven to not be backed up by action, Putin has decided he can act more aggressively in his region without fear of military intervention. It was a dangerous precedent to set.

From what I understand, America is partially responsible for Ukraine's security. Russia too. This whole situation is a mess, and if it isn't handled correctly, whatever that way might be, things could escalate rapidly from here.

A space station isn't going to do us much good if we wind up in another world war. I personally see it as a bad omen.

First of all they are not idiots. They know what they are doing. Sure it isn't in yours and mine best interest, but they don't care. It is in their best interest. Second of all, one side has democratically elected officials with term limits. The other side is run by a borderline, soon not to be borderline, dictator and his buddies, with no freedom of press and poor civil rights track. So no. This sutuation are not two equal rivals bickering. Not even close.

Hey, wait a minute, the US has term limits too! Well, for very specific offices.

In 1998-2000, I worked on a (never flown) space vehicle that was an alternative to getting help from the Russian's when putting up the the ISS in the first place.

The dialogue would be:

Russia: "Uh, we don't know if we can deliver on time. Money would help."US: "That's okay, we have [plan b, my project]. It'll do the same thing."Russia: "Oh. Okay, we can deliver on time."

The talk on my project back in the '99 time frame that the ISS was actually just a way to funnel money to Russia. We occasionally had Russian engineers on site (though we didn't have this kind of discussion with them!).

Note: I'm not saying that Russia didn't do anything or deliver anything. What I am saying is that the US repeatedly kept them in the game as a part of international diplomacy.

I have to admit, the more I learn about the situation over there the more I am not a fan of how things are playing out. It's starting to seem to me that after the Syria debacle, the one where Obama drew a line in the sand that was proven to not be backed up by action, Putin has decided he can act more aggressively in his region without fear of military intervention. It was a dangerous precedent to set.

From what I understand, America is partially responsible for Ukraine's security. Russia too. This whole situation is a mess, and if it isn't handled correctly, whatever that way might be, things could escalate rapidly from here.

A space station isn't going to do us much good if we wind up in another world war. I personally see it as a bad omen.

After the Crimea annexation and the support Russia has shown for the separatists in Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk, I became pretty much convinced that the only way this was going to end is if we went over there and gave Putin a bloody nose and shamed his military completely and publicly by kicking their asses all the way back to Moscow.

EDIT: I've read a few of the responses to my comments, and I understand where you're coming from. But, I don't have a "kicking ass" mentality; I have a "defending Ukrainian sovereignty" mentality. I'm not just some thug who thinks the US should stomp around imposing our will, however, I think we're *generally* more benevolent than Russia and China. Most of Eastern Europe (Baltic States, Poland) is running scared right now because of the neo-USSR they see rising in the near east, and if it weren't for NATO and the EU, I truly believe the geopolitical situation would be much less favorable than it is right now. Worst case scenario: Russia would have waltzed into Kiev, executed the opposition, subjugated the entire country, and installed a puppet regime by now.

[cheeky] And, for the record, the US is 2-0 in world wars. History is on our side. [/cheeky]

While the Russian economy is currently flatlining, that doesn't really affect Russian sovereign debt or balance of trade. As long as the world sill needs gas and oil between now and 2020, Russia has no risk of bankruptcy.

I have to admit, the more I learn about the situation over there the more I am not a fan of how things are playing out. It's starting to seem to me that after the Syria debacle, the one where Obama drew a line in the sand that was proven to not be backed up by action, Putin has decided he can act more aggressively in his region without fear of military intervention. It was a dangerous precedent to set.

From what I understand, America is partially responsible for Ukraine's security. Russia too. This whole situation is a mess, and if it isn't handled correctly, whatever that way might be, things could escalate rapidly from here.

A space station isn't going to do us much good if we wind up in another world war. I personally see it as a bad omen.

After the Crimea annexation and the support Russia has shown for the separatists in Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk, I became pretty much convinced that the only way this was going to end is if we went over there and gave Putin a bloody nose and shamed his military completely and publicly by kicking their asses all the way back to Moscow.

I don't think this is a good idea. Above and beyond the economic repercussions even a successful war would inflict on all concerned, you should consult Imperial French and Nazi accounts about attacking Russia in winter. Here's a hint: it's not a good thing.

Without the ISS, the Russians don't have a space program. their last mission to Mars didn't get out of Earth orbit.

I didn't see it in this article, but Mr Rogozin also noted that the Russian part of the ISS can function independently of the rest. So Russia will have a (much diminished) space station, while the USA will have bupkis.

I have to admit, the more I learn about the situation over there the more I am not a fan of how things are playing out. It's starting to seem to me that after the Syria debacle, the one where Obama drew a line in the sand that was proven to not be backed up by action, Putin has decided he can act more aggressively in his region without fear of military intervention. It was a dangerous precedent to set.

From what I understand, America is partially responsible for Ukraine's security. Russia too. This whole situation is a mess, and if it isn't handled correctly, whatever that way might be, things could escalate rapidly from here.

A space station isn't going to do us much good if we wind up in another world war. I personally see it as a bad omen.

After the Crimea annexation and the support Russia has shown for the separatists in Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk, I became pretty much convinced that the only way this was going to end is if we went over there and gave Putin a bloody nose and shamed his military completely and publicly by kicking their asses all the way back to Moscow.

The other side is run by a borderline, soon not to be borderline, dictator and his buddies, with no freedom of press and poor civil rights track record.

While Mr. Putin does exhibit authoritarian tendencies, he was democratically elected and is wildly popular.If the majority of the Russian electorate wants a strong man in charge, it's not our place to deny them.

While the Russian economy is currently flatlining, that doesn't really affect Russian sovereign debt or balance of trade. As long as the world sill needs gas and oil between now and 2020, Russia has no risk of bankruptcy.

Well, sort of. Russia owns very little foreign debt, its budgetary goals are predicated upon a minimum $100ppb Brent crude price mark, and their GDP is going to continue to decline as their population does.

Russia may well be bankrupt (again) by 2020. So... ok. Besides maybe with Russia abandoning the place the US will finally be forced to give NASA a budget.

IF Europe stops buying their gas, and I hope the hell they do. Russian oligarch money is all tied up in banks in London. What a crazy situation....

Anyway, Elon Musk! The man in the right place at just the right time. Something like Gates and Jobs in early 80s. Or Page and Brin in the 90s. He's got them all beat because SPAAAACE! Damn. Incredible.